Another Book Pile

My last book pile was on January 10th. Like January one year ago, I did far too much book shopping last month. I think it's caused from trying to avoid getting books when I have birthday and Christmas shopping to do. I put off posting another book pile till as late as possible. By then I had enough books for not one but two piles. I'm tired and want to go to bed early so I'm only going to post one of the book piles tonight.

Where they came from:

PaperBackSwap: Sunshine, Coraline, The Duchess
BookMooch: Go Ask Alice, Dead Until Dark, Careers for Bookworms & Other Literary Types
Borders Marketplace: The Tree Shepherd's Daughter, The Thirteenth Tale, Mistress Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America's First Poet
Gift: The Giver, My Sweet Audrina
Target: Harry, A History

I've already read The Giver and My Sweet Audrina so they're not actually part of my TBR at all. One of my sisters gave me a huge pile of books she either had multiple copies of or that she no longer wanted. I took these two aside and placed the rest on BookMooch and PaperBackSwap.

I've only read The Giver once about six years ago. The details have become fuzzy so I would like to read it again. It's about a twelve year old boy named Jonas who receives training from a man known as The Giver, someone who is the only one who can see everything for what it is, to my understanding. There's a lot more to it but I don't want to give away what details I can remember.

My Sweet Audrina is the only standalone by a ghost writer I used to read a lot of books by but stopped reading more than five years ago. Audrina lives in a strange world competing with her dead older sister, the first Audrina. Through this book she grows up and many mysteries and secrets are revealed, some most very shocking.

My sister who received perhaps seven books in Charlaine Harris's Sookie series from us for Christmas gobbled the books up and has been excitedly telling me how good the books are. I knew about them before she did, but I only managed to get a copy of a single book last month. Many are already aware of the series and recognize it as being what the television show "Trueblood" is based from. It's a vampire series beginning with Dead Until Dark. My sister and I have never seen the show so neither of us will be able to compare them.

Robin McKinley's Sunshine was a book I kept running into on LibraryThing. It's yet another book about vampires. I would look at the book description, close the tab, and some time later another LTer would mention it causing me to look over it once again. Well, I finally gave in. Someone has already asked me what I think of it because they want to know about it to read themselves. My plan is to try to read this one soon to let them know.

I used to work with someone whose other job was for a publisher. She always came into work with advanced reader copies whose covers I would stare at in hopes of being permitted to read the back cover. She sometimes sat her book down directly in front of me and walked away. I was good and didn't touch the books. If they were face up I would just look at it and wonder what kind of story it was. She would then come back and ask why I didn't flip it over to read the back cover yet. One of those many ARCs she had was Stephenie Meyer's The Host which she teasingly asked me if I would like to touch one afternoon. Another was The Tree Shepherd's Daughter. This book is one with a very interesting book cover about a teen who moves from California to Colorado to live with her dad after her mom dies. It's the first in a series of books with fairies in it.

I like some historical fiction and was curious about The Duchess when I saw previews to the movie. However, I never saw it. I got the book thinking that I may read that and then see the movie later on once it's out on DVD.

As a Harry Potter fan I am eager to read Harry, A History, a book I first heard about on LibraryThing. Many people will recognize its title from a book within J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series called Hogwarts, A History. While that's a book I strongly hope will one day be an actual book muggles can read, Harry, A History in the meantime tells the history of Harry as the series built up an alarmingly impressive amount of fans all over the world. These fans, or many of us rather, got to experience the waiting periods and everything that came with them between each of Rowling's book releases. It's a lucky experience many of us have had that introduced us to new people who we connected and became friends with. Goodness, it's something that introduced me to some of the best people I have ever known and come to love.

I took a book quiz last month that told me I was a slight bit of a book snob when it comes to books that are popular and might fall under mainstream fiction. I don't want to read a book because everyone else is reading it. I want to read it because others who enjoy the same books as me or people that I actually know versus strangers enjoyed it. Since I've heard a convincing amount of good feedbacks from it, I decided to get The Thirteenth Tale.

One of my absolute favorite poets is Anne Bradstreet. I did a presentation on her in a college Women's literature class but would still like to learn more about her. I was happy when I came across a book about her online, Mistress Bradstreet though it took me a while to get it. I have a hard time with some nonfiction books but I have an interest in the time period Bradstreet lived in as well. Perhaps after reading this when family members talk about family history I can tell them a little more about the Puritans then they can tell me.

I apologize for the sloppy and incomplete blog entry. I've been very tired lately and hope to get to sleep soon.